Comics class - view from back of the large lecture hall

Courses

The grant supported the development of ten new courses, five each in AY 2022/23 and AY 2023/24. Click on the course title for a range of teaching materials supplied by each course developer, including syllabus, slide-decks, lesson plans, assignments, and a blog. 

Year One (AY 2022-23)

Slide - Bulletproof Black Men

AFRAS 475 - Super Black: The Politics of Representation in Comics

Ajani Brown, Department of Africana Studies
“Super Black" is the exploration of comics focused on the increased prevalence of black comic book characters and their creators.  We will delve into the purposeful and audacious inclusion of these culturally specific story arcs into the sequential arts medium. This is an analytic history of the diverse contributions of Black artists to the medium, covering comic books, superhero comics, graphic novels, and cartoon strips.

Slide - Latinx Comic Book Storytelling cover

ECL 568 - Chicanx Comix: Community, Storytelling, and Social Justice

William A. Nericcio, English and Comparative Literature
When it comes to the history of comics, comic books, editorial cartooning, and animation in the United States in the 20th and 21st century, the chapter dedicated to works by Americans of Mexican descent (Chicanos/as/x) would be enormous. Examining pathbreaking works, “Chicanx Comix” treats advanced undergraduates and/or graduate students to broad array of styles, genres, media and more.

Lesson 10 slide - The Future Race and Morailty

HIST 538 - Comics in Cold War America

Gregory A. Daddis, History
“Comics and Cold War America” examines the Cold War as a political, ideological, cultural, and military contest through the medium of the “comic” as it evolved throughout the post-World War II era. By examining Cold War comics, students will have the opportunity to evaluate how these visual arts depicted race, identity, gender, and social justice during a time when many U.S. citizens believed they were engaged in an existential struggle between good and evil.

Slide - Mainstream Comics Go Queer

LGBT 550 - Queering Comics 

Jess Whatcott, Women's Studies/LGBTQ+ Studies
“Queering Comics” is an exploration of LGBTQ+ culture, ideas, aesthetics, relationships, identity, and politics through the prism of sequential art. We will use the medium of comics to explore the politics of representation, assessing both the consequences of the absence of complex queer and trans characters, and conversely the stereotypes that are reproduced when queer and trans people do appear.

Slide - Coloring Comics

RWS 413 - The Rhetoric of Comics

Ben Jenkins, Rhetoric and Writing Studies
“The Rhetoric of Comics” offers an analytical look at the multimodal characteristics of comics, focusing on how visual rhetoric and sequential narrative are crafted within the genre to persuade and to convey meaning and messages to specific audiences. Students will identify, analyze, and evaluate the various modes of communication that comics creators utilize in telling their stories.

 

Year Two (AY 2023-24)

  • Religion in/of Comics
    Brad Kirkegaard, Study of Religion

  • Manga and Japanese History
    Raechel Dumas, History

  • Comics and Race
    Michael Domínguez, Chicana and Chicano Studies
  • Comics and the Environment
    April Anson, Humanities

  • Comics for K-12 Teachers
    Katie Sciurba, Literacy Education